For the transportation and storage of syringe barrels before their filling with a medicament or the like, there have been widely employed for years medical containers each of which can hold plural syringe barrels together in an upright position. As illustrated in FIG. 6, such a container 10 is generally in the form of an upwardly open box, and has a structure that a shoulder-shaped portion 3 is arranged on an upper part of its inner wall and a holder 30 capable of holding plural syringe barrels in an upright position is arranged as a nest inside the container 10. The holder 30 (nest) is of a construction that plural cylinders (holding portions) 6 having through-holes therein are arranged upright on a plate-shaped member and the syringe barrels can be held in position by inserting syringe barrels 40 from one sides 8b, at which syringe needles are to be fitted, and hooking flange portions of the syringe barrels on upper ends of the cylinders 6.
When such a medical container is employed, the plural syringe barrels 40 are held upright, and moreover, medicament fill ports 8c of the syringe barrels 40 are directed upwards (see FIG. 3). The use of such a medical container, therefore, has such merits as will be described below. As a syringe barrel manufacturer is generally different from a medicament manufacturer, syringe barrels are shipped from the syringe barrel manufacturer and are then transported to the medicament manufacturer. At the medicament manufacturer as the destination of the transportation, filling of a medicament into the syringe barrels transported as described above is performed. In this case, the employment of such a medical container enables the medicament manufacturer to concurrently conduct sterilization treatment to the plural syringe barrels and to store and transport the sterilized plural syringe barrels together. If the plural syringe barrels transported in the medical container from the syringe barrel manufacturer to the medicament manufacturer are equipped on the needle fitting side 8b thereof with nozzle caps 9, respectively, as shown in FIG. 7(b), it is possible to obviate at the medicament manufacturer a step that would otherwise be needed to bring the nozzle caps 9 into engagement with the syringe barrels. When the syringe barrels are delivered in the above-described state, a filling operation can be efficiently conducted by taking the holder 30 together with the plural syringe barrels 40 held thereon out of the container 10 and transporting it, as it is, to a medicament filling machine (not shown). More specifically, the medicament can be filled into the respective syringe barrels at the same time by filling the medicament from plural filling nozzles, which are arranged on the filling machine, into the exposed fill ports 8c of the syringe barrels 40.
It is to be noted that, as medical syringes require to place ultimate priority on safety, each container containing plural syringe barrels placed therein and being to be shipped from a syringe barrel manufacturer needs to be sterilized fully in the state and to be distributed or stored with the sterilized state being maintained. As a method for bringing the interior of a container into a sterilized state, sterilization treatment is conducted by such a method as covering an opening in an upper part of the container with a cover sheet (cover) having low gas permeability, fixedly securing the sheet on the container, and then irradiating electron beams in the state (see Patent Documents 1 and 2). For the container containing the plural syringe barrels placed therein and being to be shipped from the syringe barrel manufacturer, it is desired, as another demand, to prevent the occurrence of rattling of the syringe barrels in the container, said ratting being a potential cause for the formation of scratches or like damages during the transportation. It is also desired that, when the holder 30 is taken out of the container 10 and the medicament is filled into the plural syringe barrels 40 held on the holder 30, the plural syringe barrels 40 are in such a state as permitting precise filling of a medicament into the medicament fill ports 8c of all the syringe barrels 40.
Patent Document 1: JP-A-2004-513707
Patent Document 2: JP-A-2004-513708